The sign accompanying the Agena-B. It reads
Agena-B Upper Stage
The Agena-B upper stage was used during the 1960s as an orbital injection
vehicle for Midas and other satellites and as an intermediate stage booster for
Ranger and early Mariner space probes. It was fitted on Thor or Atlas-D launch vehicles, which
then became known as Thor-Agena and Atlas-Agena.
Most notably, the Agena-B also served from 1960 to 1963 as the Corona photoreconnaissance
satellite, which flew under the cover name Discoverer. The Agena-B used
a restartable and gimballed liquid-fuel rocket engine made by the Bell
Aerospace Company. On one side, through the window toward the front, you can
see one of the Agena's Earth-sky horizon infrared scanners. This cylindrical
optical device kept the vehicle on the right flight path in relation to the
horizon.
Transferred from the U.S. Air Force
Length: | 7.2 m (23 ft. 10 in.) |
Width: | 1.5 m (5 ft.) |
Thrust: | 70,400 N (16,000 lb) |
Propellants: | nitric acid and UDMH
(unsymmetrical dimethyl hydrazine) |
Manufacturer: | Lockheed Missiles and Space
Co. |
| A19650291000 |